


Where I Belong

by WingsforWinter



Series: 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, John Winchester's Bad Parenting, Light Angst, M/M, Supportive Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 17:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1656254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingsforWinter/pseuds/WingsforWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the day of Dean's wedding, and it's safe to say he has cold feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where I Belong

**Author's Note:**

> [30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge](http://ghiraher.tumblr.com/post/37135733342/30-day-cheesy-tropes-challenge)
> 
> Part 12: Arranged Marriage AU
> 
>  
> 
> So sorry for the hiatus! I moved into a new place and it was kind of horrific at first, but I'm back up and running!!
> 
> Happy reading!

Dean pretends to be asleep as Cas searches through the darkened room for his discarded pants. Just the fact that Cas is being careful to not wake him cuts Dean to the bone.

 

Though it was as far from Castiel’s fault as possible, being treated like a meaningless one-night stand by the blue-eyed man is killing him inside. He wants nothing more than to sit up and pull the clothes from his hands, wrap his arms around him and drag him back to bed, but he knows he can’t.

 

Because yesterday was their last day, and they both decided that a clean break would be easiest.

 

Because it doesn’t matter that Castiel sits squarely at the top of the list of Things Dean Wants. Not anymore.

 

Because today is Dean’s wedding day.

 

He has about three hours before the Talbots’ people come to pick him up from his small Brooklyn apartment. All of his things are already packed up and sitting by the door. Three hours before he has to say goodbye to the only home he’s ever chosen for himself, and the only person he could imagine his life with anymore.

 

And the fact that Cas was only ever supposed to be a one time fuck, or that they both knew this day was coming when they decided to take the thing they have beyond that first perfect night doesn’t lessen the sting.

 

He doesn’t know how Cas could be so calm, so levelheaded about the whole situation. Dean had moved beyond the denial, the white-hot anger, the bargaining; but while Cas seems to have moved on to acceptance, Dean is stuck in depression. He chokes back the sob that sits in his throat, but hot tears flow freely, soaking his pillow.

 

Three years. Three years of loving and fighting and learning and growing with the most wonderful person Dean had ever known means nothing now, or is supposed to mean nothing, but Dean doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to let go.

 

He’s always loved too deeply, too completely, and it always comes back to bite him in the end. Losing Mom to the fire, losing Sammy to California and a life so much better than anything Dean could ever dream of for himself, losing Dad to the drinking and the gambling that ultimately led to him selling his oldest son to the highest bidder and then to the car accident that took his life. And now he is losing Cas.

 

Awkward, bitchy, amazing Cas—who calls Dean on his shit and bakes the most amazing pies and only smiles when he really means it. Cas, who picked Dean up off the ground more times than he can remember and says his name like it _means_ something and never makes Dean feel any less than the most important thing in Cas’s life.

 

Dean sniffs wetly as he watches Cas pull on his shirt, and Cas freezes. If Cas didn’t realize he was awake before, he certainly knows now, and Dean buries his face in the soggy pillow so he doesn’t have to see Cas look at him with pity in his eyes, like Dean is dying today rather than getting hitched to some rich spoiled brat. He’s a damn trophy wife, not a cancer patient.

 

A petty, nasty little part of Dean tells him the reason Cas seems so okay with losing Dean is that he really is okay with it, that he never really cared, and it is forcibly silenced when Castiel manhandles him over to bury his face in Dean’s neck.

 

“Don’t cry. You’ll be fine. You’ll see.” Dean had never seen Cas cry, and hearing how close he was now broke the dam within him. Cas holds him tight as he shakes and shudders and wishes more than anything that he wasn’t turning 21, that he had just a little more time, that they outlawed the arcane practice of arranged marriage as a whole. Anything but this—having his free will ripped from him because his old man was in debt to the wrong people.

 

“No I won’t.” Dean doesn’t care if he’s being overdramatic. He’s always done exactly what was expected of him, always followed orders, always been ‘Daddy’s little soldier’ as Sam phrased it when he was angry. He’s always put everyone else before himself, took care of Sammy most of all, and the one time—the _one time_ Dean chose anything for himself, he gets shafted again.

 

If the Talbots weren’t such a dangerous family to cross…

 

“Dean, run away with me.” Cas says it so earnestly that Dean pulls back to look him in the eye.

 

“But you said—”

 

“I know what I said.” Cas cuts him off, dragging his fingers through Dean’s short, sandy hair, “And I still think that you would have a good life with Bela. You’d never want for anything,” Dean opens his mouth but Cas silences him with a look, “you’d never have to work another day in your life… But if you want this—if you really want this, I think we could do it.”

 

And Dean can’t say yes fast enough. He surges up to capture Cas’s mouth with his own, throwing his arms around the older man and pulling him down hard.

 

“You would do that? You would come with me?” Dean breathes when he breaks away for air. Cas stops peppering his face with kisses to give him a look of disbelief.

 

“Of course. I love you.” Cas says it so easily, like its common knowledge, and Dean holds him tighter. Dean would lose next to nothing by leaving New York, but Cas had a good job, a nice apartment, friends… and he is offering to just give it all up. For _Dean_.

 

They move quickly after that. Dean’s stuff is already packed, but they don’t have enough room for all of it in the impala, so he leaves behind everything but the essentials. Next they stop at Cas’s place where they do the same.

 

The Talbots are a powerful family, but Dean seriously doubts they’ll send anyone after them once they realize he's skipped town, and if they do, he and Cas will cross that bridge when they get there. He just hopes that they realize he's not worth the trouble. Dean’s pretty, but not _that_ pretty. He gets a chuckle out of Cas when he shares his thoughts.

 

They’ll be ok.

 

They're on the road for an hour before Dean has Cas call Sam.

 

“Oh thank god. I thought I was going to have to major in divorce law.” Dean can hear his little brother grinning through the phone. “So you're heading my way? This is awesome!”

 

“Yeah, yeah squirt. We’ll see ya soon.”

 

Cas hangs up and turns to smile at Dean, and his heart swells up to his throat. They have a long road ahead of them, both literally and figuratively, but Dean can honestly say he’s never felt so optimistic for the future.

 

And if he ever does decide to get married, it’ll be no one’s choice but his own.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Free Will is paramount. Arranged marriage can suck it!


End file.
